Career plateauing is fast becoming an issue in organizations due to the influx of the baby boom generation into middle-management ranks, combined with the widespread downsizing and restructuring of organizations. Previous literature on career plateaus has not examined which employees respond positively or negatively to a plateau. Instead the focus has been on managing an employee in a plateau or on differences between plateaued and nonplateaued managers. / This research is based on the premise that a response to a career plateau is a coping response initiated by the employee to manage career development stress. A model which details career plateau response was developed and tested in this research. / Results of an analysis of plateaued employees showed the model to be a reasonable representation of the process by which employees respond to a plateau. Several coping strategies demonstrated predicted effects with 3 response outcome variables: current career development stress, commitment, and performance. Other strategies demonstrated effects opposite those which were predicted. The perception of positive alternatives to promotion offered by the organization did not demonstrate the predicted effect of positively influencing the plateau process. A negative coping style was associated with a negative career plateau response. / Negative affectivity, a personality moderator included in the model, was found to increase the stress associated with a career plateau. Need for advancement, another moderator, did not demonstrate a significant relationship. Practical implications and conclusions are given. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-06, Section: B, page: 3489. / Major Professor: Pamela L. Perrewe. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This study links industry and firm context to the CEO psychological-to-performance relationship. This research is based on the view of managers as a locus of firm performance. Industry environments present firms with constraints and opportunities to which a firm must deploy its capabilities to create value. Managers influence the process of matching the firm to the environment, or the process of changing the environment by making decisions and/or not making strategic decisions (i.e., major administrative, domain and competitive choices). Environmental cues which managers identify as important, the way they interpret these cues, and the choices they make from these cues are shaped by cognitive and personality factors. While the effect of such factors has developed into an important research stream in strategy literature, examinations of boundary conditions for these factors are rare. / This research examined and evaluated the impacts of important industry-level facets on the cognition-to-performance relationship by comparing CEO communications across industries. Industry turbulence and munificence are prominent industry factors in strategy literature. Their effect on the performance relationship of the psychological construct of optimism was studied. Cognition factors of ambivalence, passivity, and propensity to change were also examined. The CEO communications of 169 single-business publicly traded corporations were analyzed. Munificence was observed to lead to a positive moderation effect for the optimism-to-performance relationship, while leading to negative moderation for the propensity-to-change-to-performance relationship. Industry turbulence was observed to yield a negative effect on the passivity-to-performance relationship, while affecting a positive effect on the-propensity-to-change-to-performance relationship. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

This research project examined how mentoring affected women in 3 lumber-related industries using a mixed methods approach. The research results included survey responses from 49 women and interviews with 10 women of various demographic and industry experiences. Although mentoring and career advancement have been researched by others, this project included 3 industries that have not been extensively researched; therefore, the information included in this project will add to previous research and enhance the abilities of women to advance their careers. Organizations will also benefit from the research data collected to enhance their abilities to attract, retain, and promote women into leadership positions.

To what extent does a leader behavior depend on his or her gender? Past research is divided. Some scholars found evidence that women's participative, caring, and collective orientations make them more democratic and inclusive leaders. Other evidence points to "leader androgyny" (Bem, 1977) or similarity between the genders. This quantitative study examined whether, in the eyes of 141 subordinates, 33 Information Technology project managers were significantly different in their empowering behavior. A revised Leader Empowering Behavior Questionnaire (LEBQ; Konczak, Stelly, & Trusty, 2000) was employed. The LEBQ has 6 behavioral dimensions which are correlated to subordinate psychological empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995, 1996). On two dimensions, Accountability and Self-Directed Decision Making, women leader's scores were significantly higher than men's. No significant differences between the genders were reported in Delegation of Authority, Information Sharing, Skill Development, or Coaching for Innovative Performance, nor were they significantly different on their Overall Empowerment scores. To sum up, these leaders were reported as more similar than different, indicating "gender similarity" (Hyde, 2005) rather than a distinct "Female Advantage" (Helgesen, 1995). / Additional future exploration of this topic includes a larger sample size or different population. Other areas include the gender interaction of superiors and subordinates, the extent to which leaders employ the empowering behaviors that matter most to subordinates, and relationship of empowerment to measures such as engagement or retention. / Keywords: Gender, Empowerment, Female Advantage, Gender Similarity, Psychological Empowerment, Leadership, Leader Behavior, Leadership Androgyny, Culture

Existing linear asset pricing models do not fully explain the abnormal profits associated with prior-return portfolios. In addition, existing nonlinear consumption-based models produce implausible risk aversion coefficient values when applied to priorreturn portfolios. Measures based upon production instead of consumption reduce residual errors and drive risk aversion coefficients towards plausible values. Augmenting the existing models with a new production-based marginal utility growth proxy, supplemented by a production-based consumption proxy not previously applied to price prior-return portfolios, can explain the abnormal profits associated with prior-return portfolios and yield plausible risk aversion coefficient values.

Global business executives and researchers recently highlight the importance of understanding the dynamics of supply chain process integration in a global context. The literature still lacks studies that provide a comprehensive understanding of the major antecedents and consequences of supply chain process integration from a global perspective. This dissertation builds on several theoretical foundations such as the resource based view (RBV), the relational view (RV) of the firm and transaction cost analysis (TCA) to develop a framework that explains the drivers and outcomes of global supply chain process integration. This global study responds to these challenges through exploring the antecedents and consequences of global supply chain process integration for 320 supply chain and purchasing managers that source from over 33 countries. A theoretical framework is proposed that builds on research in strategic management, supply chain management, and international business and tests 8 proposed hypotheses. One new construct – global supply chain process integration – is developed and tested. Another construct, logistics performance, is modified from its existing form in the current literature. Significant results and good fit indices tested with structural equation modeling generate a number of interesting implications for global supply chain managers and researchers. For executives and strategists who are concerned about better managing their supply chains, this study provides insights for how manufacturing firms can develop a competitive edge through a higher level of flexibility by integrating its supply chain processes with its global suppliers. The study also provides empirical evidence on how supplier flexibility in a global environment can lead to improvements in process and firm performance.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Business, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0267. Adviser: Iris Vessey. "Title of dissertation from home page (viewed Jan. 8, 2007)."

<p> Globalization is resulting in increasingly culturally diverse work environments, and prompting the examination of the multicultural leader. This quantitative study explored the relationship of the cultural intelligence (CQ) of the leader and the helping and voice organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) in a multicultural work group. The cultural intelligence of the leader as well as the organizational citizenship behaviors, particularly helping and voice behaviors amongst peers, of the multicultural work group were assessed to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists. A statistically significant relationship was found between leader metacognitive CQ and helping and voice OCB in a multicultural work group, as well as between leader behavioral CQ and helping and voice OCB in a multicultural work group.</p>

This dissertation depicts a two-year effort to improve group situation awareness (SA) in the U.S. Navy's Third Fleet. The research contributions of this work are in three primary areas: (1) the study of behavioral, social and political factors that affect technology transition in the military, (2) the determination of the requirements for SA collaboration in the Navy, and (3) the development of a collaborative system to support distributed group SA. This research utilized the Technology Transition Model (TTM) to guide the development and fielding of a web-based, thin client prototype logging application known as CommandNet. Through the course of this initiative, the political, social and behavioral aspects of the technology transition were found to be more important to the success of the project than the actual specific attributes of the software application. By propagating SA in near real time throughout the organization, the prototype application directly supported rapid coordinated decision-making and action in the fleet. Individual prototype users were found to have great power over the introduction and proliferation of the technology. Users at all levels of the military hierarchy became change agents that could not only encourage participation in the collaborative logs, but also establish usage norms that other users actively enforced. The users' willingness to adopt the prototype was largely a factor of fit with work processes, however, social factors such as status and recognition were often more important to the individual users than the practical aspects of the prototype. The elicitation of requirements and iterative development of the prototype GSS revealed four necessary attributes in support of group SA collaboration: (1) reliability, (2) responsiveness, (3) simplicity, and (4) flexibility. The more specific requirements of a logging tool derived from this work were the need for searches, entry analyses, and user alert notifications. Additionally, providing support for time zone changes, entry categorization, prioritization, system security, user access control, and a range of user controlled display options were discovered to be important prototype enhancements.

New theoretical developments and recent experimental studies involving the sealed-bid k-double auction mechanism for bilateral bargaining under incomplete information have raised new questions about procedures that induce efficient bargaining behavior and about the applicability of extant adaptive learning models. It is now generally accepted that a theory of bargaining behavior for individuals who typically do not meet the stringent assumptions about common knowledge of rationality cannot be complete without systematic empirical investigations of the properties of the various mechanisms that structure bargaining. The aim of this dissertation is to critically explore the extent to which efficient bargaining outcomes can be achieved while dynamically accounting for individual behavior across repeated play of the game. In the first study, an endogenous bonus is introduced into the baseline single-stage game. Although theoretically doing so induces truth-telling behavior for both players, the experimental data provide very limited support. In the second study, the baseline game is extended by incorporating an additional, costless period of bargaining, thereby giving players an increased opportunity to reveal information about their respective reservation values. The data show that subjects quickly learn not to reveal information about their private valuation despite the increased opportunity to bilaterally improve efficiency. Finally, the third study investigates behavior sensitivity to variation in the trading parameter, k. Instead of following the historical precedent of setting k = ½, extreme values of k are invoked in an asymmetric information environment endowing a player with exclusive price-setting power. Although theoretical analysis suggests that expected profits for a seller (buyer) decreases (increases) in k, experimental results show that under conditions of dramatic information asymmetry, the observed share of the surplus is much smaller for the player with price setting power if countered with an information disadvantage resulting in poor support of the LES. Furthermore, the price setting power effectively counters the information disparity advantage demonstrated in previous studies. Results from a previously proposed reinforcement-based adaptive learning model not only demonstrate robust applicability across studies but also the model's ability to account remarkably well for the dynamics of play across iterations of the stage game.